Making a parable out of the Holocaust is a dicey proposition, and here the emotional tugs are so forced that it exploits and trivializes the historical tragedy it claims to be trying to illuminate.
Comment
11/26/08
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008)
65
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:124
Fresh:80
Rotten:44
Average Rating:6.2/10
Consensus: A touching and haunting family film that deals with the Holocaust in an arresting and unusual manner, and packs a brutal final punch of a twist.
Theatrical Release:12-09-2008
Synopsis: Based on the novel by John Boyne, THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS is a wrenching Holocaust story about a young German boy and his forbidden friendship with a Jewish child. Bruno (Asa Butterfield) is... [More]
Starring: Vera Farmiga, David Thewlis, Rupert Friend, David Hayman
Director: Mark Herman
Reviews for The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Even in its lighter moments, the picture never downplays the horror of the situation, and the devastating ending is potent enough to affect even those viewers who write it off as nothing more than a sensationalist stunt.
11/26/08
Poignant and devastatingly sad - but over-the-top manipulative.
11/25/08
[What] might easily have been turned into a terrible and tasteless Boy's Adventure in the Holocaust movie... is, instead, a film that you won't soon forget.
11/21/08
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas fails to illuminate history. Instead, it raises questions about the project itself. As in, who thought this was a good idea?
11/21/08
The resulting film nicely captures the banality of evil -- at least until overplaying its hand.
11/21/08
Those problems won't concern anyone caught up, perhaps for the first time, in a story that has the potential to rend any hearts that remain open to it.
11/21/08
I found the movie impossibly basic and sanitized as a 'never again' parable of the Final Solution -- and simply wrongheaded as a story about children.
11/21/08
The tropes of the heartwarming indie kids movie get thrown together with the tropes of the low-voltage, war-at-home war drama, and the result is muddled but undeniably affecting
11/21/08
Perhaps the movie might be most profitably viewed as almost a genre tale: A suspense thriller with a moral to its twist ending, like that old Nazi 'Twilight Zone' episode, but without the supernatural element.
11/21/08
A beautifully photographed film that hammers home its point (people are essentially good, Nazis are evil) repeatedly and simplistically.
11/21/08
... a serious and well-made film that does the only moral thing a movie can do when it attempts to confront great evil - it nips off a human-size chunk and doesn't flinch when the horror turns and bares its bloody, brazen maw.
11/21/08
Either you will appreciate The Boy in the Striped Pajamas particular tact, or you will cringe on what it decides to exploit. Like the subject it secures as part of its plotting, there is no middle ground.
11/20/08
Writer-director Mark Herman, working from the novel by John Boyne, has created a smart-looking film, but one in which the only thing we learn about the Holocaust is that children were its victims, too.
11/20/08
This is an assured work, and [director Herman] gets fine performances from his cast.
11/20/08
The tale takes on the resonance of a Greek myth, and even though the story is fiction it finds devastating truths.
11/20/08
This story is already a tear-jerker, but the superb acting makes it even more heartfelt
11/18/08
---- a truly inspirational film ----
11/14/08
Unfortunately, the film's compelling ideas get buried in sloppy filmmaking.
11/14/08
Director Mark Herman (working from a novel by John Boyne) avoids condescension and refuses to cop out as the film heads inexorably toward its harrowing conclusion.
11/14/08
Latest News for The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
March 16, 2009:
An unlikely buddy flick which makes light of the Holocaust. 
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March 05, 2009:
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March 01, 2009:
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